Knitted glove



y 1943- F. s. GLUCK 2,318,772

KNITTED GLOVE File d-April 10, 1942 Patented May 11, 1943 UNiTED STATES PATENT OFFIQ KNITTED GLOVE Fred S. Gluck, New York, N. Y., assignor to Waldorf Knitting, Inc., New York, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application April 10, 1942, Serial No. 438,490

2 Claims.

This invention relates to devices such as knitted tubular articles, for instance gloves.

One object of the invention is to provide a knitted tubular article having improved reenforcing means integral with one section of the article, comprising yarns different than those which form the closed or circular courses of the article.

Another object of the invention is the provision of an improved device such as a knitted glove or other tubular garment or part thereof composed principally of a Wool-like yarn, and having yarn of superior tensile strength knitted into the main Wear absorbing area of the device to prolong the life of the article while permitting the rest of the device to maintain its natural properties, in-- cluding appearance, softness, lightness in weight, insulating quality and stretchability for accommodation of the wearer.

Another object of the invention is to furnish improved methods and means for making articles of the character described in a relatively inexpensive manner adapted for quantity production.

Other objectsand advantages of the invention will become apparent as the specification proceeds.

With the aforesaid objects in View, the invention consists in the novel combinations and arrangements of parts hereinafter described in their preferred embodiments, pointed out in the subjoined claims, and illustrated in the annexed drawing, wherein like parts are designated by the same reference characters throughout the several views.

In the drawing:

Figure 1 is a bottom plan view of a knitted tubular article such as a glove embodying the invention.

Figure 2 is an enlarged diagrammatic sectional view taken on line 2-2 thereof.

Figure 3 is a diagrammatic view of a portion of the knitting.

Figure 4 is a sectional view with conventional cross hatching, taken on line 4-4 of Figure 1.

Figure 5 is a plan, inside-out View of a tubular knitted portion showing a step in the production of the main body of the glove of Figure 1.

Figure 6 is a similar view of afinger portion.

Figure 7 is a sectional view taken on .line 1-1 of Figure 5, with conventional cross hatching.

Figure 8 is a view of a tubular section of an article such as a glove, inside-out, to show the projecting ends of the severed inlaid yarn according to another step of the process.

Figure 9 is adiagrammatic plan view of aportion of a circular knitting machine, illustrating a step in the method of plating yarns in one side of a relativelylarge tubular element such as the body portion of a glove.

Figures 10 and 11 are like diagrammatic views of a portion of a flat knitting machine, illustrating successive steps in. the method of plating yarns in a relatively small tubular element such as a glove finger portion and whereby the latter, while in the machine, is adapted to be knitted to the body portion upon engagement of the appropriate part of the body portion between the rows of knitting needles.

The advantages of the invention as here outlined are best realized when all of its features and instrumentalities are combined in one and the same structure, but, useful devices may be produced embodying less than the whole.

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art to which the invention appertains, that the same may be incorporated in several different constructions. The accompanyin drawing, therefore, is submitted merely as showing the preferred exemplification of the invention.

It will be understood that the method herein disclosed may be practised with other devices or tools, manually or by machine, although the process of operating machines such as herein suggested is considered to be a valuablefeature of the invention, and that the methods hereinafter described may be practised with the steps thereof arranged in diiferent order and with certain steps omitted or replaced by other operations.

Referring in detail to the drawing, l2 denotes a new article of manufacture in the nature of a knitted tubular device, which may be exemplified by a garment or a portion thereof andthe advantages of which are especially apparent in a winter glove. Such a glove is made throughout of relatively closely knitted, fairly heavy wool yarn. In accordance with the usual practise, the body portion l3, the thumb portion l4 and the finger portions l5 are each separately knitted as suggested by the dotted boundary lines at it and I1, and are then knitted together along these lines, butthis is no. featureof the invention, and is mentioned merely as. explanatory of certain features of the process hereinafter described and as indicative of various difiiculties surmounted by the invention.

As herein used, the terms. theunder part or the bottom part of the glove are intended to denote the palm section S of the glove body I3 and/or the corresponding sections SI of the thumb. and finger portions thereof, these being the sections that receive the most wear. In contradistinction, the other sections of the glove are the upper or cover portions which are normally subject to much less abrasion or wear. If the invention were embodied, for instance, in the sleeve of a sweater, the elbow section can be called the bottom or under section to differentiate from the opposed or upper part of the sleeve which receives much less wear. In a broader sense the terms under part or bottom part may be used as synonymous or interchangeable with the principal wear resisting section, which in some devices or garments may be above the bottom or lower part.

The novel characteristic of the device or glove I2 is that the bottom part including the sections S and SI has particular plated yarn L knitted with the wool yarn W which latter forms continuous circular or closed courses indicatedat l8. Differently stated, the yarn L, hereinafter described, follows the paths of the yarn W, throughout and in the stitches thereof, so that the stitches in the sections S and SI are each formed by two separate yarns. Thus the total number of stitches is not increased nor is the structure of the stitches changed from the conventional, which may be employed herein. Yet, in another sense, the yarn L may be regarded as forming stitches coincident with or connected into the stitches of the yarn W. The structure of the stitches, shown at [9, indicates that there may be a certain uniformity of the relative positions assumed by the different yarns, and that the yarn L may preponderantly lie at the normally outside face of the finished glove, but it is desired that a substantial portion of the yarn L shall be embedded within the fabric and the nap thereof and be betweeniadjacent yarns W in order not to unduly change the appearance or "feel of the fabric. This yarn L may terminate at the lateral boundaries of the bottom section of the glove, including the sections S and SI, and may there form free ended projections 20 as shown in Fig. 4 lying within the glove. But the upper or back part of the glove including the corresponding sections B of the glove body and BI of the thumb and fingers is free of the yarn L and may consist only of the wool yarn W.

The yarn L may consist of yarn that has substantially greater tensile strength or hardness, or both, as compared with the yarn W. From another viewpoint, it may have substantially less thickness or weight than the yarn W. These various characteristics may be employed to suit. By way of example, the yarn L may consist of cotton, linen or composition thread. The weight thereof should be as small as possible, in order not to unduly increase the weight of the glove; in general the weight will depend upon the tensile strength or desired resistance to wear. Satisfactory results have been employed by using relatively thick thread such as is used in sewing buttons on garments, particularly overcoats. The yarn L thus differs radically from the yarn W, which may consist in whole or in part of wool or other wooly or nap bearing yarn, and preferably such as are relatively soft and fibrous. But other yarn may be substituted according to the degree of warmth desired.

With this invention, therefore, a wool glove may be obtained which is of conventional neat appearance, with the desired soft feel, and which is well adapted to keep the hand warm. It may be shaped to suit, and may snugly fit the hand, particularly as the back sections B and BI are stretchable in the manner of a knitted wool product. The bottom sections S and SI are less stretchable by reason of the yarn L, which will not slip in its courses because it is locked in the stitches l9. This yarn L also reduces somewhat the outside nappy appearance of the sections S and SI, and hence the effect produced may be termed plating. But a more accurate term descriptive of the action of the yarn L may be stitch lacing because it reenforces the stitches of the wool yarn; in fact, it forms an integral or inherent reenforcement in the sections S and SI to increase their resistance to wear, abrasion and ripping, but particularly its action appears to depend on maintaining the spacing between the stitches of the wool yarn. I have discovered that a principal reason for rapid destruction of gloves is the stretching and consequent thinning of the knitted wool fabric, as where a soldier grasps and pulls on a heavy object, thus unduly separating and exposing the wool yarn to abrasion andtearing. With this invention, what may be termed a homogenous reenforcing agent is provided to reduce the undesired results above noted. Also the wearing away of the nap of the wool is retarded. A substantial part of the otherwise exposed nap of the wool is driven inward by the stitch lacing yarn L, as already pointed out, so that the body of the wool is maintained for a prolonged period of time and its insulating quality is not materially impaired even after use that is sufiicient to destroy woolen gloves not thus'reenforced. Furthermore, the sections S and SI wear out quite evenly, as there is nothing which will suddenly peel or rip off or form tatters on the glove. The above advantages will be found to obtain in other devices and garments embodying the invention.

The method of making a device such as the glove [2 will now be described. The body portion l3 of the glove may be knitted on any circular knitting machine, such as diagrammatically indicated at 2i. The same may comprise a circular series of knitting needles 22 to which yarn is fed by a. coaxial, rotatable yarn carrier means 23. The latter may include a plurality of diametrically opposed members 24, 25, each of which may respectively mount a plurality of yarn carrier elements 24L and 24W, and 25L and 25W, individually slidable toward and away from the needles to thus feed diiferent yarns to selected needles. On the member 24 only the wool carrying element 24W is projected into operative relation to the needles, whereas the carrier 24L for the cotton or linen yarn is retracted so that its yarn will not be grasped by the needles. On the member 25, both carrier elements are projected so that the element 25W will feed wool to the needles and the element 25L will feed cotton or linen yarn to the needles. The indicated settings of these four yarn carrier elements may be maintained for every half rotation; thus when" the member 25 reaches the position of the member 24, the yarn carrier 25L is retracted; and when the member 24 simultaneously reaches the position of the member 25, the yarncarrier 24L is projected. Thus the cycles continue, so that successive circular courses l3 are knit to form the love body l3.

Hence there are portions of the cotton or plating yarn L which are not knit into the fabric, as indicated at 26 in Figs. 5 and '7. These lie along the back part B of the glove body, and they are subsequently cut off leaving projecting end portions 20 as shown in Figs. 5 and 8. At some subsequent point in the process, an open ing is formed as at l6 for the thumb M, as by removing a slip thread knitted into the fabric in a manner well known in the art. The glove body is turned inside-out to cut the yarns 26, and is then reversed to normal position.

The thumb M and the finger portions l5, being of rather small diameter, are knitted on a flat knitting machine 21 of any well known type as diagrammatically shown and adapted to knit closed, and in effect, circular courses. The machine 21 may have a row of needles 28 and an opposed row of needles 29, these rows being inclined to each other and affording therebetween a longitudinal pathway for the knitted tubular fabric 30 shown in dot dash line. These needles 28, 29 are operated in a conventional manner with yarn which is caused to travel back and forth along the gang of needles and is fed to the needles along a central vertical plane. The novel feature herein provided resides in the method entailed in using a reciprocating yarn carrier 3| having a central guide opening 32 for the wool yarn W and having a lateral extension 33, formed with a guide opening 34 for the yarn L. It will now be apparent that the needles of one row will engage and knit with both yarns, whereas the needles of the other row will grasp the yarn W, but the yarn L will be out of reach thereof. As shown in Fig. when the needles 28 are retracted, the needles 29 are projected and will successively engage both the wood yarn W and the cotton yarn L. Thus bottom sections such as S! will be knitted. Upon the reverse run of the yarn carrier, the positions of the parts will be as indicated in Fig. 11 and the hooks of the needles 28 will be remote from the guide holes 34 and will only grasp and knit with wool yarn to form the sections Bl. To assure that the hooks of the needles 28 shall clear the extension 33 of the yarn carrier, it may be slightly upwardly offset as shown. It may be added that the thumb and finger portions may be individually knitted to the body part of the glove by inserting said body part into the machine 21 and engaging its stitches with the appropriate needle hooks, in a manner well known in the art. At some suitable point in the process, the thumb and finger portions are turned inside-out and the free portions 35 of the yarn L, formed as in Fig, 6 and as already described for the glove body of Fig. 5, may be cut off, to form the free ended projections 20, and then the thumb and finger portions may be reversed so that the yarn projections be inside of the glove. The meshes forming the fingertips are finally gathered and finished to complete the product.

In the operation of both machines 2| and 21, the tension employed on the yarns L and W may be such as to afford a smooth, nonwrinkling knitted fabric. Since the yarn L is relatively nonstretching, its tension may be higher than that on the yarn W, to secure tight stitch anchorage of the yarns L. Because the yarns W possess resilience, they may contract slightly when the article is removed from the machine, and such contraction will cause a flufliness or softness or added body for the walls of the glove so that the appearance and warmth retaining properties of the underside of the glove shall be substantially like that at the top of the glove. The quantity of cotton or linen employed may be only 15 per cent by weight of the total wool used in the glove, to effect the desired reenforcement without materially reducing the insulation qualities of the glove; but it may also be as low as 10 per cent and as high as 30 per cent with satisfactory results.

If it be desired that the cotton yarn L shall appear mainly at the outer faces of the portions S and SI as indicated in part in Fig. 3, to afford additional resistance to wear, this result is caused by the use of higher tension on the cotton than on the wool yarn and by the greater thickness of the wool yarn. The fact that the yarn carriers maintain the yarns separate and feed them to the needles in uniform position is of assistance in this regard, but primarily the result mentioned appears to be due to the tendency of the thin cotton yarn to slip under or laterally of the wool yarn to thus lie snugly directly against the body of the needle hooks because of the tension on the cotton yarn and the motion of the yarn carrier in laying the yarns across the needles. This action occurs with both the circular and flat knitting machines. It may be added that the main reason for the use of the circular machine is that it is cheaper to knit the tubular body I 3 thereon than on the flat knitting machine.

I claim:

1. As a new article of manufacture, a knitted seamless glove having an underside portion having substantially greater resistance to wear than the portion which covers the back of the hand, said glove having circular courses of wool extending transversely of the glove, reenforcement yarns of cotton-like material in the underside portion at least at the hand and fingers of the glove, having substantially greater tensile strength than the wool yarn and extending along the said courses and terminating in free ends at the edges of the underside portion, each reenforcement yarn being knitted with the wool yarn so as to constitute an integral knitted part of each course, the stitches of the wool yarn being under relatively low tension so that the wool is stretchable, soft, and forms a substantial nap, the stitches of the cotton-like yarn being coincident and interlocked with the stitches of the wool yarn and having substantially higher tension so as to produce a reenforcement knitting having substantially less stretchability than the wool knitting and serving to interconnect the wool stitches at a multiplicity of points to thus substantially reduce the stretchability of the wool knitting in said underside portion and prevent undue separation and abrasion of the wool stitches, while causing anchoring of the cotton yarns to prevent slippage adjacent to their free ends, the free ends lying protectively within the glove, and the reenforcement yarn being positioned to lie predominantly at the outer surface of the glove to protectively overlie the wool yarn and to force a substantial part of its adjacent nap inwardly to maintain the insulating quality of the said underside portion of the glove, part of the nap being exposed between the cotton yarns to partially conceal the same.

2. As a new article of manufacture, a knitted seamless glove having an underside portion having substantially greater resistance to wear than the portion which covers the back of the hand, said glove having circular courses of wool extending transversely of the glove, reenforcement yarns of cotton-like material in the underside portion at least at the hand and fingers of the glove, having substantially greater tensile strength than the wool yarn and extending along the said courses and terminating at the edges of the underside portion, each reenforcement yarn being knitted with the wool yarn so as to constitute an integral knitted part of each course, the stitches of the W001 yarn being under rela tively low tension so that th wool is stretchable, soft, and forms a substantial nap, the stitches of the cotton-like yarn being coincident and interlocked with the stitches of the wool yarn and having substantially higher tension so as to produce a reenforcement knitting having substantially less stretchability than the wool knitting and serving to interconnect the wool stitches at a multiplicity of points to thus substantially reduce the stretchability of the wool knitting in 

